The day before Halloween a Utah courthouse was spooked by a pack of bats invading the building.
Construction workers accidentally left a vent open when they left the courthouse prior to the bat infestation. It's unknown how many Brazilian free-tailed bats were in the building, but witnesses speculate the number to be in the thousands.
"I don't like bats. I saw it crawling, and it's stuck in a little lamp, and I'm like, I'm done. I want out," Zac Weiland, a deputy prosecutor from Washington County, told KSL.
Despite the large number of unwanted guests in the courthouse, proceedings were not interrupted and ran according to schedule.
Thirty to 40 bats were removed thus far by a structure installed that was described by Lynn Chamberlain of the Division of Wildlife Resources as "a one-way door where they can get out but can't get back in."
The court is working on inspecting the building just in case some of the bats managed to get in through another entry besides the vent.
"We are investigating to find all entries so we can prevent this from happening again," Nancy Volmer, Utah state courts spokeswoman, told The Associated Press. "There may be other ways they could have gotten in."
Authorities are hoping that the last of the bats fly out of the courthouse by tomorrow morning.
Although it's not often you hear of a flock of bats occupying a courthouse, it's in their nature to seek sanctuary in large numbers inside an enclosed structure, reports UPI.
